Islam,Terrorism and Jihad

SEVEN years after the September 9 World Trade Centre attacks spelt the first ban for Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI), two profiles about the organisation continue to clash — one that of a ghost which “has ceased to exist” and the other of a “group of youths and students easily influenced by hardcore Muslim terrorist organisations operating from within the country and abroad”, says KRISHNADAS RAJAGOPAL

In India, 99.9 per cent Muslims are peace-loving and have nothing to do with terrorists and terrorism. …It is essential to involve the Muslim community in the fight against terrorism. In fact, the Deoband seminary has issued a fatwa against terrorism, writes former Director, CBI and now a regular columnist Joginder Singh.

New Delhi: It is not without reason that regional forces like Rashtriya Janta Dal, Lok Janshakti Party and Samajwadi Party are supporting the cause of banned Students Islamic Movement of India. Interrogation reports of SIMI chief Safdar Nagori and his top aides reveal that the outfit has entrenched its hold amongst the community, including within the financially sound, educationally qualified and opinion making section of the community, for carrying out subversive activities.

ISLAMABAD, Aug 27: A civil society organisation on Wednesday expressed its concerns over the sharp increase in the number of children being recruited for militancy and violence by religious seminaries, gangsters, political factions, tribal chiefs, various sects and national movements to wage a war inside the country...Whether it is in the tribal areas in Sindh or in the Northern Areas or in cities such as Karachi, children should be kept out of the war on terror at every cost.

The security forces are geared for a "hot summer" in Jammu and Kashmir as the Pakistan Army and ISI continue to actively support terrorists by training them and providing launch pads for infiltration into India.

It is safe to assume that the Indian Mujahideen, which prides itself on being a terrorist organization, killed innocents in Gujarat, uses a logo displaying guns on either side of the Holy Book, sends threatening email signed by a split personality (both "Al Arbi" and "Al Hindi"), would like to be judged by Quranic law.

I presume they would not suggest the application of Sharia to non-Muslims. We Indians are unique in many ways: include among them the depressing fact that we have had terrorists from four major faiths - Muslims in Kashmir, Christians in Nagaland, Sikhs in Punjab and Hindus in Assam’s ULFA. Terror has been a constant weapon of Maoists and Naxalites, none of them waving a green banner, writes veteran Indian journalist and author M J Akbar.

The latest e-mail sent by the 'Indian Mujahideen', said to be aligned with SIMI, has been signed by 'Al-Arbi-al-Hind', or 'The Arab of India'. So, who is this 'Arab of India'? And does his mission end with bombings? Or is he now planning to hijack a plane? An analysis by

The Taliban and Al Qaeda are the principal actors that have used terror tactics to destabilise Pakistan. They are driven and motivated by an outdated ideology. They want destabilisation of Pakistan, writes Mir Jamilur Rahman.

The fatwa is concerned with geopolitics more than theological reform. Concern for the safety of one's co-religionists is of course legitimate and should be addressed. But Jihadism, the legitimizing root of political violence, cannot be ignored in any effort to protect the lives of Muslims, writes security analyst Dr.Walid Phares in The American Thinker.

Tavleen Singh is a highly respected columnist. But her attempt to put the entire blame for the unfolding tragedy upon the failure of Kashmiri leaders like Omar Abdullah, Mehbooba Mufti and Yasin Malik to speak up against the jihadis who were claiming that an innocuous transfer of land to the Shri Amarnath Shrine Board constituted an attempt to change the demographic composition of Kashmir, is both simplistic and unjust, writes veteran columnist Prem Shankar Jha. (Tavleen Singh’s column can be read below)

SIMI chief Safdar Nagori told interrogators, he had parted ways with SIMI and floated his own group that he called Muslim Technical Persons Organisation. It was a group that was formed in Hyderabad to create a pool of young Muslim technocrats. But his men primarily looked for computer professionals and those with know-how of chemicals, reports Haider Naqvi inHindustan Times, New Delhi.

Jihad is a more complex thing than what it is made out to be by the strategy experts in the West. It is not just war against infidels. There has been continuous internal debate among Muslims about the many meanings of jihad. Theethical and spiritual aspects of the word jihad are just being overlooked. US-based Pakistani historian Ayesha Jalal speaks to Srinivas Parsa.

MUMBAI\DELHI: In a dramatic development in the terror email case, US national Ken Haywood, who had yet to be given a clean chit, flew out of the country with his family from Delhi on Sunday night despite a look-out notice given to the immigration authorities....Maharashtra's Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS), which had summoned Haywood for questioning on Monday afternoon, was at a loss to explain how a person under investigation in a terror case managed to slip away. In fact, this has led to speculation that the Indian government allowed him to leave the country

TRIPOLI: Libya and the United States signed a deal on Thursday to compensate all US and Libyan victims of bombings or their relatives, clearing the way for the former foes to completely normalise ties.

Beijing, August 14: The leader of China’s restive far-western region of Xinjiang has warned of a “life and death struggle” against terrorism, following a series of attacks that raised fears of threats to the Olympic Games.

AHMEDABAD: Having used ammonium nitrate-based bombs to devastating effect in serial blasts across the country, the Student Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) was experimenting with a new concoction using hydrogen peroxide to make liquid bombs, reports Paul John,TNN.

A series of terrorist attacks during the last ten days in the Xinjiang province is drawing attention to the new prospect of an Islamist jihad against China. Timed to coincide with the opening of the Beijing Olympics, the violence in China’s has claimed more than 30 lives, writes singapore-based Indian journalist and academic C Raja Mohan.

Shortly before four British Muslims, three of them of Pakistani origin, blew themselves up in the London Underground on July 7, I traveled along the Indus River to Akora Khattack in the North-West Frontier Province of Pakistan. Here, straddling the noisy, truck-thundering Islamabad highway, stands the Haqqania, one of the most radical of the religious schools called madrasas, wrote William Dalrymple in The New York Book Review.

Two terror attacks in the past week have thrown the spotlight on China’s northwestern Muslim majority region of Xinjiang. But the emergence of separatist groups in the region is diverting attention away from the real problems on the ground, writes Ananth Krishnan.

Islam is once again under the scanner, with the unearthing of the Students’ Islamic Movement of India (Simi) terror trail. With the logo of its offshoot, the ‘Indian Mujahideen’, displaying guns on either side of the Quran, the connection made with Islam is ugly. And misguiding, says Firoz Bakht Ahmed, a commentator on social and religious issues.

WASHINGTON: The top US commander in Afghanistan Thursday publicly accused Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate of "some complicity" over time with militant groups fomenting violence in Afghanistan.